Francisco Rodriguez and the Mets have settled the grievance K-Rod filed after the team tried to make his deal non-guaranteed. The settlement: his deal is still guaranteed, but he drops his challenge to the Mets placing him on the disqualified list for the end of the 2010 season. That means he basically forfeits the $3.1 million he was owed for that last month and a half or so. He’ll be back on the Mets, deal in place, for the 2011 season.

Thus concludes a really weird chapter in Mets history. I’m certainly no fan of K-Rod’s in light of this whole incident, and if the allegations about his history with his girlfriend that have emerged in preliminary hearings related to his criminal case are true, he can drop dead as far as I’m concerned. At the same time, I think the Mets approached all of this pretty poorly.

The Mets’ get-tough-stance with K-Rod was one of financial opportunism, not disapproval of his actions. After the incident in the clubhouse, but before it was revealed that K-Rod hurt his hand, the Mets used him in a game. If he had not been hurt, they no doubt would have continued to use him in games. The extent of the punishment they would have leveled against him was that game or two suspension he served prior to his final appearance. The idea of disqualifying him and then seeking to void his contract — or, at the very least, render it non-guaranteed — was in no way a statement regarding his actual behavior. Just the results.

Nor do I know for certain that the Mets were even viewing it as some kind of stand against that behavior. I’m not accusing them of anything. It may be the case that the team merely saw this as a situation in which they were trying to recoup losses from a player who could not perform as contracted to and the domestic violence stuff didn’t enter into it at all. I’m just saying that I wish the Mets would have viewed it as a serious situation before they realized K-Rod was hurt — I wish they would have considered his outburst, and not just his injury worthy of punishment — and acted to suspend him then.

I would applaud any team that wanted to take a stance against domestic violence, even if doing so meant going up against the union on what may have been a lost cause. I don’t think the Mets were doing that here, and that bums me out a little.

Actually, I was AT the one game you mention above. 4-0 loss to the Phillies and Halliday. K-Rod pitched the ninth, gave up 1 hit. Velocity (at least according to the gun) and location looked OK. Unless his hand absolutely blew up after the game, I don’t get it. Something doesn’t add up.